..续本文上一页”t leave, we leave. If he doesn”t go, we go — because he and we all live in the same world of inconstancy. There is no difference among us. What we can hold to, though, are the basic principles of his teaching. We hold to them and earnestly put them into practice so as to see the results, so as to seize victory within the heart.

　　Victory of this sort is the supreme victory, unsurpassed in all the world. No other victory is its equal. We grapple to take victory over ourselves — over the defilements that we have believed to be ”ourselves,” ”us,” ”ours,” for aeons and aeons. This is an enormous undertaking. If you play at it, like children playing with dolls, the defilements will crush you to bits in no time, because you”ve been holding onto them for so long. So don”t delay. Investigate so as to know clearly and let go, so that the mind will be clear and free of suffering and stress, and not forever in disarray.

　　We”ve been accumulating the words ”us” and ”ours” for countless aeons. If the defilements were material objects, what in the world could we take for comparison that would be larger than the pile of defilement, craving, and mental effluents, the pile of ”us,” the pile of ”ours” we”ve been accumulating for so long

　　 There”s so much of it that it would be beyond our strength to drag it out for comparisons. If we were to drag it out just to pass the time between eating and sleeping — to chip at it, hack at it, poke at it, or slash at it once or twice, hoping to break through it — we wouldn”t get anywhere at all. We”d simply be grabbing at handfuls of water, one after another. So we have to give it our all: This is where we will gain our victory.

　　We”re meditators. We can”t back away from the fight with the defilements lying within us. The word ”defilement” means simply this ”hunk of us.” The defilements are ”us,” ”ours.” Everything that”s ”us” is actually a pile of defilements. There”s no need to doubt this. If we want to separate them out so as to see them piece by piece for what they actually are in line with their true nature, we have to separate them using persistent effort in the area of mindfulness and discernment as our means of investigating and evaluating them.

　　We separate the elements (dhatu), the four elements. Everyone in the world knows of the four elements, but if we want our knowledge to go straight to the heart, it has to come from the practice. If we investigate using discernment until we see distinctly, it will penetrate the heart of its own accord. Once it has reached the heart, you don”t have to say anything: The heart will let go of its own accord. Once the knowledge goes straight to the heart, relinquishment comes straight from the heart. For us to know straight to the heart and let go straight from the heart, we have to investigate over and over, again and again, until we understand.

　　Don”t assume that, ”This we”ve already investigated, that we”ve already investigated,” by setting up expectations, counting the times without seeing deeply enough to the level of letting go. The work isn”t done with. It really has to reach the level of ”done with,” felt deeply within the heart, which then lets go. If it”s really done with, there”s no need to investigate again, because the heart has understood and can let go completely.

　　The elements are already elements. Cognizance is an element. The things that make contact are also elements. Sights are elements, sounds are elements, all these things are already elements. As for the khandhas within us, the body (rupa) is a khandha, feelings (vedana) are a khandha, labels (sañña) are a khandha, thought-formations (sankhara) are a khandha, cognizance (viññana) is a khandha. They”re groups, aggregates, heaps, bits, pieces, all by their very nature.

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